Mr. Gareth Hetherington:

There are two key long-term, multi-decade challenges. The first is the demographic challenge and the other is climate. On the demographic challenge, which I indicated in my opening statement, the working-age population in Northern Ireland will plateau this decade and then contract. That is a trend consistent across almost all of Europe. Ireland is a little bit of an outlier; the Irish working-age population is forecast to peak beyond 2030, so there is a bit more time from an Irish perspective. The answer lies in a number of elements, one of which is, perhaps, examining increased automation to increase and help productivity. We are all living longer. Should that mean we all need to work longer and thus think about increasing retirement age? Work is also needed on immigration. To go back to the point made previously, particularly about the North, how can we make it a more attractive place for people both from there who have left and people not from there to come and live, invest and work there and all those good things? That is a big, important piece that the world has to address in terms of demographics, but it is a specific issue for us.

The other is also a global issue, around climate, which two previous contributors spoke about. The Climate Change Committee indicated that, on what I think is called a "balanced pathway", will only achieve 83% of net zero by 2050. We must obviously get to 100%. We are not on the balanced pathway yet, but that will only get us to 83%. There is a much more accelerated pathway that requires some very radical changes, for example, in agriculture and what that will mean for that sector. Even that does not take us to 100%. It is about climate, how we address it and, as I said, the need to hit net-zero targets while also investing in the infrastructure we also dearly need. It will be an incredibly challenging trick to pull off.